Knights, a Little Girl, and a Snake
by parttime-dumbblonde
Summary: A young Integra has lunch with the other Knights and a certain, slithering, uninvited guest joins them. Read and Review!


-I got the idea for this story after remembering a short story I read long ago in elementary school. I do not remember the title, but I have it to thank. Once again, I do not own Hellsing. I also don't own snakes…pity.

-Integra is 14 in this particular one-shot.

It was a dreary London morning, the kind where you didn't know if it was going to rain or just threaten to rain. Integra learned that you just couldn't plan your day around uncertain weather; the thing to do was to just go ahead and do whatever you wanted outside and, if it happened to rain, it just rained.

That was how Integra came to be sopping wet. She had gone for a walk in the garden and got caught up pulling a mess of offending weeds in the vegetables when the sky broke and let go a down pour of cold rain.

She ran in through the back door into the dim, empty kitchen. She noticed how the tile was shining and spotless and quickly felt bad for dripping all over it. Slipping slightly, she didn't get the door shut all the way as she turned on the lights and headed toward the drawer by the sink to retrieve a hand towel. She wiped herself as dry as possible and then went back to the door to shut it and dry the floor where she had been standing.

"You're going to get sick one of these days, Master," said a familiar, low, permanently sultry voice from behind the kneeling Hellsing. She turned to look at him and then twisted back around to face the puddles once again.

"What are you doing up?" she asked while dabbing at the wet shoe prints.

"Days like this always seem to keep me up," the vampire replied. "Why were you outside?"

She knew he didn't mean it offensively, but it seemed like everyone thought she was such a sheltered and polished girl. Only Walter knew of her wild side; he was usually the one to order her down and out of trees, the one to find and get rid of the stray, "motherless" critters she carried in the house. Alucard made it sound like she was a prisoner, like she wasn't supposed to go outside or that it was rare and unheard of.

She replied, standing up, "I was just walking."

He glanced down and then back up at her. "There's dirt under your fingernails."

She sighed. "I got distracted by an army of weeds trying to take over the vegetable garden."

He smirked. "And how did that go?"

She returned the gesture. "Mission accomplished."

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Integra saw something move across the ivory-white tile. She turned her head quickly to catch a glimpse of a small brown tail flick behind the pantry. She was about to go and investigate when Alucard reached out and twisted a long lock of her damp, now honey-colored hair, around his long fingers.

"Walter wanted me to remind you that we will be having guests over for lunch."

Integra's eyes widened. "That's today!" she exclaimed.

Alucard nodded at the pot steaming on the stove. "It is. And today," he smirked, "it seems that all of them are coming."

"Well of course. None of them would miss an opportunity to blame me for the apocryphal downfall of the organization. I wonder what I'm at fault for this time," she grinned. "Inexperience? The lack of a penis, perhaps?"

Alucard chuckled as he walked with Integra out of the kitchen and towards her room. "I think, my master, they tried that last time."

"Oh that's right. Well, I'm 14, so they could always play that menstrual card, couldn't they?"

He nodded, grinning. "Blood is blood to a vampire. They could very well argue that you are putting you and, ultimately, the organization, at a greater risk by being its sole leader."

"And I could always argue that every vampire that has ever so much as looked at me, got a hole in his chest before he could blink."

"Excepting one, master?"

"No, Alucard, you've received dozens upon dozens of holes in your chest. Especially at that time of the month."

A deep chuckle. "My mistake."

-Later, at lunch in the dining room-

Integra was dressed in a long green skirt and a professional, modest, collared white shirt with green tie and a silver cross brooch. She was seated in the middle of the long table, surrounded by the rest of the royal knights, who looked her over disapprovingly as they carried on with their small talk. Walter stood to the side, over seeing the preparation and distribution of each course. When the time came for the appetizer, a servant carried out baskets of rolls and butter and set them on the table. Chit chat ceased as Integra and the guests began to eat. When conversation did resume, it was all about the progress of the Hellsing Organization. They each inquired about different responsibilities that it called for and asked who took care of those things. Integra answered each question sincerely and with an unruffled air.

"I take care of all that," she said.

"You?" replied a shocked knight. He grinned and looked around at the other equally flabbergasted guests.

"But…you are only…15 and–"

"Fourteen," she corrected.

There was a long pause. The smaller plates were cleared and the main lunch course was served. As each knight received his steaming bowl of beef and vegetable stew, they, one by one, came out of their awkward silence and conversation continued.

"Miss Hellsing," began one. Integra flinched, but regained her composure and lifted a spoonful of stew to her mouth as she listened. "So you take care of all the paper work. You also take part in the information gathering." He pulled himself up straighter and eyed his companions before making the first jab of the afternoon. "Do you also hunt and exterminate the vampires?" There was light laughter all around the table at this, as none of the high and mighty knights could imagine a young girl of 14 getting her hands dirty shooting vampires.

"No, I do not." Integra answered amid the chuckling men. She could feel a dark presence in the room and shivered slightly at the drop in temperature that no one else seemed to notice. _I was wondering when he would show up. Just couldn't miss the entertainment, could he? _

"You don't kill vampires," repeated one knight, shoveling half a roll into his cavernous gap of a mouth.

"No," she straightened and tore her own roll in half to butter it. "Just ghouls."

Laughter stopped there. Well, all except for the deep, dark laughter ringing in her head. He was no doubt enjoying this. "And I would greatly appreciate it if you addressed me as Sir Hellsing. I am knighted, you know?"

"You actually contend with those… those horrid things?" Asked one stunned and frankly disgusted knight.

Another knight spoke up, "By ghouls you mean…"

Integra's butter knife stopped in mid-stroke on her roll. "Those gray, mindless, blood-sucking, flesh tearing, moaning corpses. Ghouls."

A number of the grown men had gone pale with the description. Integra munched on her roll while the others sat in deep thought. One knight straightened and proudly declared, "Well, they can't be all that horrible then. If a young girl can take care of them, they can't be that dangerous." There were several nods and soon the whole table agreed that ghouls are not that disgusting; anyone could deal with them.

Integra was busy coaxing her anger down to a minimum and busying herself with her stew, trying to block out the rants of the older men. Just then, she felt something rather strange. She calmly looked down at her feet and then returned her attention back to the table. No one seemed to notice her distracted gaze. She waited for Walter to reenter the room, but concluded that he was probably seeing about dessert, so she called out to Alucard in her head.

_"Alucard."_

_"Master?"_

_"Tell Walter I need him to set a small bowl of warmed milk by the door leading outside from the dining room."_

_"Warm milk, Master?"_

_"Just go and tell him," _she repeated.

"Sir Hellsing, I don't believe I've ever seen a ghoul. Do you think my seeing one can be arranged?" asked one knight.

"I don't see why not," she replied, trying to keep her laughter stifled. "Shall I let you know when an attack arises?"

"That would be great, indeed," answered the naïve old man.

In moments, Walter appeared and crossed the room to the French glass doors, opening them a crack and setting a small bowl of warm milk at the doorstep. Eventually, all the knights turned to see what he was doing and a number of them recognized the use of bait.

"Bloody hell! Sir Hellsing, there is a snake in this room?" exclaimed one. At this, the room was in a frantic uproar. Feet were raised as well as voices.

"It's nothing to be alarmed about. Please, gentlemen…" but her attempts to restore order went unheard.

"I FELT IT! IT SLITHERED OVER MY BIG TOE!" shouted one man as he shot up and kneeled on his chair. The men around him jumped onto their chairs, as well. Alucard's laughter mingled with her own inner mirth as they watched the knights seem to transform from noble men to little boys. Soon, every guest was either pressed against a wall or balancing precariously on their chairs.

"What kind of snake is it!" asked a rather round man standing on his chair.

"I do believe," Integra said, "it was an Adder."

"An Adder! Why…those are poisonous!" A few men tried to climb onto the table, but it would not support their weight.

"I see it! It's at the door!" yelled a man at the far end of the table. Everyone turned and watched the poor, scared snake, escape through the cracked door. One man jumped up and leapt to close the door swiftly behind the creature. People came down off their chairs and dabbed at their foreheads with handkerchiefs.

"My my," breathed an older gentleman. "Wasn't that frightening? The dreadful beast could have bitten somebody!"

"Those things are lethal, I've heard!"

"Indeed!"

Order gradually returned to the gathering as dessert was brought out and distributed. There were still several nervous glances under the table as they slowly picked and ate at their treats.

The pause was broken by one curious knight, who turned to his neighbor and whispered a question. That neighbor shrugged and several others in ear shot of the man mouthed their uncertainty as well. Finally, the fist knight asked, "Sir Hellsing, how did you know there was a snake in the room?"

Integra tried to keep a straight face, but failed and looked down at her dessert. She brought a spoonful of her food halfway to her smirking lips before replying. "It was resting on my feet."

The only sound she heard was the sound of her servant's laughter and praise in her mind. The knights just stared down at their plates, food falling from forks or out of mouths to plop noisily onto the dishes in the stunned silence of the room. Integra calmly raised her fork to her mouth. "Mmm. Delectable. Wouldn't you agree, gentlemen?"

Silence.


End file.
